Vocalist Kimberly Gordon is a native Chicagoan who becomes the house singer just about everywhere she sings. For example, during her five years in New York City, she was artist-in-residence at Small's and at Cleopatra's Needle, sometimes singing at other clubs such as Bradley,s Sweet Basil and The Village Vanguard. (She says that, between apartments, she literally lived at Small's, and, for once, "literally" should be taken literally.)

Back in Chicago, Kimberly found a particularly good musical companion in B-3 man Chris Foreman, so good in fact that—with different guitarists, most recently Andy Brown—they formed the Kimberly Gordon Organ Trio, which has just finished its decade-long residency at the Green Mill, where some call Kimberly "The Nightingale of the Green Mill".

Chicago is a toddlin' town that, over the years, has produced great singers from Joe Williams and Nat Cole, through Bill Henderson and Irene Kral, to Patricia Barber and Kurt Elling. To that list, please add the name of Kimberly Gordon.

Pick

Artist

Album

Song

Label

# 1

Tony Bennett

The Essential Tony Bennett

I Wanna Be Around

Columbia Legacy

# 2

Carmen McRae

Alive!

Woman Talk

Mainstream

# 3

Duke Ellington

Live at the Blue Note

Mood Indigo

Roulette

# 4

Ella Fitzgerald

The Duke Ellington Songbook

Rockin' in Rhythm

Verve

# 5

Billie Holiday

Ken Burns Jazz

Lover Man

Verve

# 6

Ella Fitzgerald

The Harold Arlen Songbook, Vol. 1

Blues in the Night

Verve

# 7

Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers

A Night in Tunisia

A Night in Tunisia

Blue Note

# 8

Joe Williams with Count Basie

Count Basie Swings, Joe Williams Sings

Every Day

Verve

Book

Lewis Carroll, "Through the Looking Glass, and What Alice Found There"